


Stand by me

by canigetadavai



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Character Death, HIV/AIDS Crisis, M/M, POV First Person, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:34:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22117207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canigetadavai/pseuds/canigetadavai
Summary: "Only those who felt love as our own would be able to understand it."
Relationships: Bokuto Koutarou/Kozume Kenma
Comments: 8
Kudos: 7





	Stand by me

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been in my mind for the past three years and I finally managed to finished it. Hope you can enjoy.  
> Kudos and comments are welcomed.   
> English is not my first language, so forgive me for any mistakes.

**_When the night has come_ **

**_And the land is dark_ **

**_And the moon_ **

**_Is the only light we’ll see_ **

We met in the dark.

It was a cold winter night, right around Christmas, and there we were, a bunch of lonely people in the midst of the most sentimental time of the year, looking for someone to make us feel less rejected by the world, less like a lost cause. To make us feel warm again.

I went because a friend insisted, because I had nothing else better to do.

But this was a lie I was telling myself.

I went because I was sad, alone in that room, lost among my own stuff, inside my own head, thinking if I was truly, as others said, a waste of breath, a good for nothing, a sinner, a depraved.

I heard all this words many times in my life, uttered by my family, by my (former) friends, by people in the street, strangers that saw me and identified me as one of “those people”, the kids who were losing themselves to the “temptation of the devil”.

We were recognized by our clothes, our mannerisms (as they liked to put it), or simply by the places we frequented. These places were safe havens, clubs, bars where we could be ourselves, where we could laugh, tell stories, meet someone, all without the fear of being hurt by others.

But they would still find us and hurt us, because we didn’t fit in their rules of what was right.

We were wrong, always wrong, simply because we chose to love or be with someone of the same gender.

I never understood, how come such a simple thing as the gender of the people you feel attracted to could possibly be so scandalous and horrifying to create such reaction in some people. My parents kicked me out of my house, my friends cursed and beat me, strangers give me the stinky eye and avoid me on the street, as if I was carrying a disease, when all I ever did was kiss a boy from my school.

A simple kiss got me on the streets by the age of seventeen, looking for a way to survive in the world.

Completely alone.

That, until I was rescued by a group of people who went through the same thing I was going through.

Oikawa Tooru was loud and flashy, the type of people I usually would avoid, but he offered me a place to stay, food, a job and hope for a better tomorrow. He provided me with council, a friendly shoulder to cry on, the warmth of a hug and acceptance, something I had almost forgotten how it felt. His other friends, who lived in the same house, were also nice people: Sugawara Koushi with his kindness, Semi Eita with his fierceness, Akaashi Keiji with his quiet reassurance. They made me feel safe and loved. They taught me how to love and care for someone else again.

Those were the same people I now called my friends, and who had dragged me to that party on Christmas Eve, saying it was too pitiful of a time to spend at home alone, with my comic books and a bottle of whatever alcoholic I could find that day.

And that’s how we found each other: in a dimly lit garden, with only the moon shining above us, drunk people scattered around trying to “score something”.

Me, with my gloomy, depressing thoughts; you, with your bright, golden eyes.

In fact, when I stop to think, that was the first thing that pulled me to you: how the stars seemed to twinkle inside your eyes, pools of melted gold, so expressive I could easily read your emotions on it. I remember you said to me, once, years after this first encounter, that they were only glittering because of me, because you saw me, and that this would be the truth until the end of our days.

In the end, you were right: I can’t remember a single moment I looked at you and didn’t saw the stars that were missing that night in the sky, all located inside your eyes.

I’ll never forget how we just gazed at each other for a few minutes, not accessing or evaluating one another, but just looking.

I knew that, in that moment, you could see me for who I truly was, not just the kid kicked out of his house, forced to abandon his life by others, forced to found a path on the darkness that my existence had become, but also the kid that loved apple pies since he was small, that could spent an entire day reading comic books and sci-fi novels and don’t feel tired. The kid that dyed his hair blond after moving to Oikawa’s because he finally felt free of everything that held him back for seventeen years, because he felt he could do anything and nothing would hurt as much as the complete rejection he went through just a few months before. The kid who actually didn’t want to be called a kid, but sometimes still felt like this, when he couldn’t control his tears, when he panicked and it took Oikawa, Sugawara, Semi and Akaashi’s attention and love to pull him back from the depth his mind would sometimes pull him.

In that moment, you saw Kozume Kenma, for who he was until that moment, and who he would be from that on.

And I also saw you, Bokuto Koutarou, your past, present and future, even if I couldn’t yet know for sure that once you had eaten so much yakiniku you spent three days without eating much more than plain rice, so bad your stomach had gotten. I couldn’t tell yet that you never had a grade higher than C+ on math, and had in fact failed it several times, but had also lead your volleyball team to the National Championship and won it, along with the title of “Best Player of the Year” for two years in a row. I didn’t know yet that it took you month to work up the courage to tell your family about your sexuality, and even then you had a panic episode so bad it took you to the hospital, where you woke up with your parents crying but telling you, over and over, that they loved you no matter what. I wasn’t aware, at that time, that despite all the support you received from your family, you were still diagnosed with depression, that sometimes you would be so consumed by your own thoughts, that nothing could take you out of it, and so you spent days alone and locked up in our room, barely eating or sleeping. That, because of that, you quit your position in your volleyball college team, you even dropped college, because you were dragging your teammates down with your mood, and wasting your parent’s money in classes you barely attended. That everyone tried to assure you this was not true, that they wanted you there, but you couldn’t bring yourself to believe them.

All of this, you told me later, bits of it, every day we spent together, and even though it was all new to me, it wasn’t difficult to believe it happened.

Those were all thing that made the man I saw on that garden, on that cold December night.

And just as we were gazing at each other, you smiled, so small compared to all the other times you smiled at me after that, and suddenly I remembered that there were other people around us, and there was music playing, conversations being made, an entire world turning and turning beside us.

You then came walking towards me, slowly, taking your time, still looking at me, and it was so much, the weight of your gaze, but I still wanted more, wanted you by my side, wanted to find out how your voice sounded, what you smelled like, and how your hair felt under my fingers.

It was so much, something I had never felt before. It scared and excited me, making me shiver under the layers of the red jacket I was wearing that day.

I was already blushing, anticipation coursing through my body, when you stopped right in front of me and talked to me for the first time.

“Hello.”

So simple, yet it washed over my body, the grave and soothing tone of your voice, the small smile still there, the way your hands were buried on your coat’s pockets, as if you were just as nervous as I was, but that couldn’t be: why would you be nervous to talk to _me_?

In any other circumstance, with anyone else, I would have hidden in myself, ducked my head so my hair covered my face, retreated to a dark corner, prayed until I disappeared. I didn’t like to talk to people, I didn’t like to stand near strangers or make conversation with them. That party was almost torture to me. Until that moment, that is.

But it was _you_ , and I already knew you were different, because instead of wanting you far away, I wanted you closer. Instead of wanting you to forget about me, I wanted to you to talk to me, ask questions about my life, which I was eager to answer.

Instead of putting on walls between us, I shattered them all down, and never looked away from your eyes, laying myself bare for you, and only you.

But it actually took me a great deal of effort to utter a quiet “Hi” back.

And it was worth it, because your smile increased tenfold, and then you started talking to me.

And then we fell for each other.

Actually, I think we were already in love by that time. I probably was, because it took almost no time for me to trust you completely, to feel comfortable around you, to feel the need to be near you, to touch you.

But we just started dating six months later. It was probably for the better, like this. We liked each other, very much, our relationship (only friendship until there) was already different from anything we had or were used to. However, we needed time to get there, on that point where we were comfortable with things like kissing, sex, or even calling each other boyfriends. And we weren’t in a rush to get there, because the time we had together, dating or not, was already precious.

We got to know each other, telling tales of our lives, sharing secrets, opening up about the darks parts of our hearts and minds. You would agree to watch scary movies with me on the theater, and I would agree to play volleyball on the court near your house. I would let you style my hair in different ways when you felt inspired, and you would beg me to help you dye yours from time to time.

I was the first person you allowed inside your room during one of your “moods”, and you said I helped, even though I didn’t do anything besides sit by your side on the bed and read my comics. You still called me every time you were having an episode, and I kept going, because not going was simply not an option.

You were the first person I allowed to hold me during a panic attack, and I did because it looked like your arms could, physically and emotionally, keep all the bad thoughts away. And I was right. The instant you held me, pressing me against your chest, I knew that was the safest place for me in the entire world.

You said the sound of me breathing centered you.

I told you that the warmth of your body calmed me.

Together, we helped each other.

It couldn’t be anything else other than love, and everyone around us saw that, but no one felt the need to rush us to the point we got after six months of friendship. It was inevitable we would get there, sooner or later.

In fact, it was natural the way we went from one state to the other.

It was a normal day, me sprawled on my bed, reading a novel, you beside me, sitting on the floor, back to the bed, laughing loudly about the comic you were reading.

But when I looked at you, you were different. The same, but different.

The sun cast an orange light around the room, setting just outside my window. You were bathed in it, seeming as if on fire, your eyes glowing just as much as they had on that first night, and your laughter made me feel warm inside, just as I always felt when around you.

I was happy.

That was the whole truth: I was happy, and I knew that much of it was thanks to you.

I loved you, and thinking this for the first time, it seemed so obvious, but it also took me by surprise, maybe because of the size of it. Loving you was simple, easy as breathing, but was also huge, taking me completely.

I didn’t felt embarrassed by this realization, or overwhelmed by it. I was simply happy.

So I reached out, and touched your hair with the tip of my fingers. You felt it immediately and turned your head to look at me.

Everything that I was feeling must had been clear on my face, because it only took one instant for your mild curious gaze turn into one of understanding, and then it morphed into something else, an expression I would be accustomed to see from them on.

It was love, just as the one I felt, and I couldn’t help but smile as I saw it reflected on you.

My fingers continued to comb your hair, gently, and you tilted your head and closed your eyes, enjoying it. I passed my fingers on the tips of the gray strands, then my nails on your scalp, scratching slightly. I traced your forehead, feeling the smooth skin underneath my digits, brushed your eyebrows. My thumb lightly swept your eyelashes and then the bridge of your nose. Your lips were smooth and I could feel your warm breath on my fingers. I framed your face with my hand, and slowly caressed it with my thumb.

You were so beautiful, more than that. Some part inside me already knew it, but I had just discovered you with the tip of my fingers and “beautiful” would never fully describe how you were and would be, from that moment on.

“Kou.” I whispered, and the world was so quiet around us that you heard me, and opened your eyes. It was the first time I had called you that, but it felt normal, as if the name had rested on my tongue throughout my whole life, just waiting for me to let it roll out.

I could see you had liked it, that you felt everything I was feeling on that moment. You turned your head slightly, holding my hand on your face with one of your own, and kissed the inside of my palm.

When you looked at me again, there were unshed tears on your eyes, and that was the most perfect moment in my life. We would still share many things together, but that was our first “I love you” and I knew my very own soul would remember and resonate that for the whole eternity.

Only those who felt love as our own would be able to understand it.

You slowly got up from the floor, still holding my hand, and settled above me, legs straddling my own, one of your elbows propped on the bed so you wouldn’t crush me with your body. But we were close, and I could feel your warmth and your chest rising and falling. I could even feel your heart beating, steady and strong, or maybe that was just my own, I wouldn’t know, for we seemed to be one at that time.

Just as we had done on our first encounter, we only looked at each other for some minutes, and during that time we rediscovered each other. We reached that comfortable place together, and then you kissed me.

It was soft and warm. You smelled like the oranges you ate that afternoon, and when we opened our mouths I could taste it in your tongue. But nothing else mattered at that moment, for we were falling on each other, holding and pressing closer. You wormed your arms under me and held me so close I could feel every little inch of your body. I hugged your shoulder with all my might and locked my legs around your waist.

It wasn’t that we thought the other was going to scape at any minute, so we tried to hold each other and prevent it. It was simply that we had to feel each other, every centimeter of ourselves had to be touching because it wasn’t enough. Entwining tongues, clutching hair, crushing our bodies together wasn’t enough, we needed more of each other, to feel more, to be more, to melt into each other and become one.

That was something I always thought, that maybe some time during our existence, perhaps we had been one, and now this was our souls trying to fuse together again. It seemed silly to think like this, but it also comforted me, to think that, if once we were one, we surely would become one again. The idea of having you near again always worked to save me from the darkness of life.

We kissed and kissed, our lips, our faces, necks and chest. We took off our clothes and explored our bodies with our tongues, lips and fingers. It wasn’t about pleasure; it wasn’t about making each other come. It was about love, loving and adoring each other with everything that we had, everything we were.

We took our time. We made love. We unveiled secrets in our bodies. We wrote love confessions in our skin. We fucked. And when everything was said and done, we laid side by side and slept holding onto each other.

We started the next morning together, and we continued like this.

**_No, I won’t be afraid_ **

**_Oh, I won’t be afraid_ **

**_Just as long as you stand_ **

**_Stand by me_ **

**_If the sky that we look upon_ **

**_Should tumble and fall_ **

**_Or the mountain_ **

**_Should crumble to the sea_ **

It was easy to live with you by my side, after that. It wasn’t easy, though, to live with the rest of the world.

It never was, actually, but now I wasn’t hiding myself, trying to adapt and survive in their reality. I was living my own truth, I was being myself, and I owned this to everyone around me, you included.

You practically moved in with me, in the bedroom I had inside Oikawa’s place. It was a big house and it was always full, so your constant presence in there didn’t bother anyone. No, you were accepted as part of the group, just like anyone else that arrived there. Oikawa’s house was a meeting point for the outcasts, the troublemakers, the degenerate. This was what they called us, actually. In the end, we were just people trying to be themselves, to find happiness in a world that condemned them.

In search for love and acceptance, people would go after Oikawa, and he would receive them with open arms. Just as he had done to me. And to Akaashi. Semi. Sugawara.

Oikawa was our leader, and we loved him and were grateful for everything he had done to us.

He found me a job, a simple one in a bookstore nearby. He gave me a home too, without asking anything in return.

His boyfriend, Iwaizumi Hajime, helped you to find something to do too. They found out your talents with volleyball, and he took you to coach some kids in a shelter in the same area.

Simple jobs, with a small income, but we were so happy with it. I could see in your eyes how fulfilled you were with teaching those kids everything you could about the sport you loved and missed so much. It was hard work. You had to struggle with your own demons sometimes, and those kids weren’t going through an easy phase either. You had to be much more than a coach sometimes, and you felt unprepared and doubtful. You felt responsible for them, and we could all understand it. But we could also understand your need to help them.

We were progressing, little by little, one step at a time, one day after the other.

A few months later, when I felt ready, we went to meet your family.

I was extremely nervous for the entire week prior to the visit. My housemates teased me, because they thought it was funny or in a poor attempt to distract me, I wouldn’t know. It didn’t help either way.

My experiences with families and being with someone of the same gender weren’t good. In fact, I only had one, my own: me, kissing a boy, and getting kicked out of the house by my own parents. I knew that your family was supportive, but I couldn’t help but be afraid I would be condemning you to the same fate I had been forced upon.

You held my hand the entire way to your parents’ house, in the old car your friend had lent you. You held my hand as we get out of the car and walked to the front door of the house. You held my hand as the door opened and we were invited inside.

You held my hand as you introduced me as your boyfriend to your father, mother and older brother.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment. Me, almost passing out with fear. You, with your characteristic big grin on your face, uttering those words with so much pride and happiness.

And your family, answering with their own smiles and welcoming me to their house.

Welcoming me. A boy dating their own son. Something they didn’t seem to mind at all.

The situation was bizarre, and I kept waiting for them to finally understand the meaning of your words, or note how you were still holding my hand in a not “we are just friends” way. I kept waiting for the tears and screams and everything with it.

Instead, I got invited to sit with them for lunch, and asked polite questions about myself, not for judgement, but for curiosity and a want to know better Koutarou’s boyfriend.

I was accepted for who I was, and not by people equal to me, but people completely different than me. They didn’t go around kissing people from their same gender, and probably never would, but they still found it was okay for me to do it, and with their son and brother.

By the end of that visit, I was still surprised with their reactions, and you laughed at my expression all the way back home.

By the end of that visit, I had gained another family, one that would be my support for the rest of my life.

Because soon enough, I would lose everyone else, except them.

We heard whispers, rumors of a disease, something exclusive to our community. Soon, it became a plague.

Everyone was paranoid and scared. No one knew what to do, what precautions to take. So, we didn’t have a way to stop it.

One by one, we started showing signs of it. Fevers, aches on the body, rashes. At first, it looked like something else, simpler, a nasty cold, some kind of allergy.

But people started getting worse.

And then they were dying.

Dozens, then hundreds. Dying abandoned on hospitals, with the government doing almost nothing to help.

And then, it arrived at our house. Some people showed symptoms earlier. Others, only much later.

Oikawa Tooru was the first of us to go.

In a matter of days, his health deteriorated. He was weak, barely ate, and used to throw up everything he managed to eat. The fever bound him to his bed, and we were constantly by his side, helping Iwaizumi take care of him the best we could.

But it didn’t work, and he passed quickly, on his bed, holding the hand of his boyfriend, his childhood friend.

We barely had time to mourn, and Akaashi got sick too. The first time I saw him coughing and covering his mouth with a hand covered is small bruises, my heart ache so much, as if it was going to pop out of my chest that very second.

We gathered again to take care of one of our own. We found out at that time that your friend, Kuroo Tetsurou, the one that lend you his car from time to time, that played volleyball with you since high school, that took you to that party ages ago, the one we met, was involved with Akaashi for some time now. They were keeping it hidden, until they felt comfortable with making it public. That plan was ruined the moment Akaashi started getting weaker. Kuroo wouldn’t leave him alone for even a second of the day.

Just as it had happened with Oikawa, we were all beside Akaashi’s bed, day and night. We were all there on the morning he passed.

Iwaizumi had taken the place of Oikawa as leader of the house, and it fell to him the responsibility to take care of those left behind. He was the one who helped Kuroo the most. Actually, they helped each other, caught in the same situation, in a moment where the rest of us were trying to keep our own significant others alive.

Because, yet again, someone else got sick.

Semi had it, and Suga did too.

Semi had two boyfriends, Ushijima Wakatoshi, an old rival-friend of Oikawa, and Tendou Satori, another volleyball friend of yours. He usually spent his days at one of their places, where the three of them could be more comfortable.

When he got sick, they decided to stay together and move to Ushijima’s family place in the country.

So Semi packed his things and said goodbye to us, trying to find a cure in the distant mountains and forests. A few months later, we received a letter from Ushijima, letting us know Semi was gone too.

Suga stayed, and he resisted for a while. His tenacity seemed to work against that disease too. Or maybe it was just the strength his boyfriend, Sawamura Daichi, seemed to ooze that kept death away from Suga.

Unfortunately, it caught up to him too. By that time, he was at the hospital, trying the new treatments that had appeared, but it was to no avail.

He died smiling, but with tears streaming down his face.

We were vanishing, many more of our friends going as the days passed. We lived in fear and grief. I could only think: any day now, it’s going to be me or Kou.

In the end, it was you.

How I wish it had been me.

To see what that disease did to you, it was like I was the one sick. It hurt so much. Every day I would wake up with you by my side, and look at your face and see how you were a little bit thinner, paler. How the bags under your eyes would grow, and your hair seemed to deflate at the same pace your strength did too.

You tried to keep your same energy, smiling and saying everything would be okay.

But I felt you diminishing with every hug you gave me, weaker than the one before. I saw it in the lack of appetite you got, you, who always ate 3 times more than me.

You got tired easily, and got high fevers and severe diarrheas.

Our friends helped me take care of you, because by now, everyone had only one goal in mind: to help anyone who got sick, even if you had only just lost someone important. Iwaizumi would make calls to important people and try to get new drugs that might help. Kuroo would help me with giving you baths and foods, and cleaning up the mess you made sometimes. Sawamura would run the house, keeping it organized, with payed bills and food on the fridge.

Your family came, and they wanted to take you home, but you wanted to stay. I wanted you to stay too, because being apart from you now would only hurt more than seeing you fading away. They accepted, but they would come as often as they could.

Your father would spend his time reading you the newspaper, as he did when you were young, when you were 6 and would sit on the floor while he was at the couch. Now, he rested besides your bed, newspaper opened, pausing from time to time to comment on some article, or to brush your hair away from your face.

Your mother would cook from everyone in the house and tell stories of your childhood. She tried to take you out of the bed as often as she could, and we would usually eat on the living room, you on the couch, and the rest of us around on the floor, plates in hand, listening to tales of you breaking bones or playing pranks with kids from the neighborhood. You would laugh along with us, and these days I could see a little more color on your face, and a little hope on the horizon.

Your brother had conversations with you, and I was impressed that there was someone who could talk more than Bokuto Koutarou. It was funny and extremely interesting to watch you two talking, about everything and nothing, about big and small things. He told you he was dating a girl from his work, and then spent an hour rambling about a new flavor of the candy you used to eat as kids. And you would congratulate him on finding someone, ask questions about the girl, and then had a heated argument about how cola flavored candies were better than the fruity ones.

They were all a comfort and a helping hand, but not only for you, but for me too. Because as you were dying, I was dying too. My heart would give out a little bit every day. It was difficult to eat and to sleep. Breathing was nearly impossible sometimes.

Not because I was sick, but because you were.

You, Bokuto Koutarou, my everything, was being taken away from me, after so little time together.

I was a mess during this time, wavering between anger and sadness. I felt anger towards that disease that was taking you away from me, towards the government that still refused to treat it as the epidemic it was, and instead condemned us to suffer with it because of who we were. I raged against any kind of deity or higher power that could exist that they had seemed fit to make you pass through something like that.

And I felt sad, so sad, that any minute now, could be my last one with you.

Because it didn’t seem fair, or right, that we had so little time together, that we wouldn’t be able to buy a house together, and build our own family. We would never grow old together. And that didn’t seem right because, from the moment we found each other, on that cold, Christmas night, I knew you were the person I would spend the rest of my life with.

So why were you going now, while I was staying?

This question was on my mind every day, the whole day. It consumed me, little by little. It was my own disease, taking away my strength the same way your own illness took away yours.

But you, brilliant Bokuto Koutarou, even whilst fevers and aches, was able to see what was plaguing me and tried to help me, the one who had to help you.

You held me in your arms one night, the same way you used to do before getting sick, and whispered promises in my hair.

That I was strong and would be okay.

That you would wait for me, wherever you ended up after all of this.

That we would meet again, because how could we not?

It was you and me.

It was in you and in me that I finally found comfort, in the reassurance I had in us – that once we had been one – that we would be okay. That I wouldn’t lose you. Ever.

A few days later, you died.

And even with the reassurance of us, I cried for you. I cried for the suffering you went through, for the time we had and the one we wouldn’t get anymore. I cried for the distance I would had to endure away for you, even if not eternal, still painful. I cried because yet again, I would have to face the world without you by my side, and that hurt.

But I had your family beside me, and they were now my family too, even if you weren’t there anymore. Your mother, and father, and brother, made sure that I knew that.

I had Iwaizumi, and Kuroo, and Sawamura, and even Ushijima and Tendou, who had come to pay their respects and say goodbye to you.

And we all had many other people who went through the same thing we did. Our community was smaller. We had lost a lot of friends and loved ones. We were hurt, and we were still getting sick. But, some way or another, we also got stronger. We passed through hell that it was to lose everyone close to us, and we came out on the other side alive, and now we had to fight for those left behind.

Iwaizumi became a fierce advocate of our rights. He was smart, determined, strong. We trusted him with our future.

Kuroo took over the volleyball team, but also the children’s center. He would take in kids like us and give them hope we didn’t get on our time.

Sawamura, with the consent of everyone involved, transformed Oikawa’s house in a meeting point for the community. People would come and get information about shelters who could take them in, doctors who were willing to examine them, jobs that would accept them. He had the help of Hinata Shouyo, who had also lost his partner, Kageyama Tobio, to the plague. They were friends with Sawamura and Sugawara, and Hinata had decided to help as a way to cope with his loss. He became a very good friend of mine.

Ushijima and Tendou took the work to the inside of the country, and founded their own centers in there.

As for me, I moved to your parents’ place for a while. They helped me complete my studies and go to college, and when I decided to write about the plague that tormented us, they supported me. They gave me my second home, after I lost the one I found in Oikawa’s house. They gave me my second family, after I lost Oikawa, Semi, Suga and Akaashi.

So I did research, I travelled abroad to other countries who had suffered with the same plague. I collected data and heard stories similar to ours. I wrote about government neglect, and the unprepared health system. About people’s prejudice and how quick they were to condemn us. I wrote about grief and suffering.

But also about love and support. About a community who refused to go silently.

And now I write about you, even if just a little bit, because how could I not talk about you, the most important factor in my life.

How could I not talk about Bokuto Koutarou, the most amazing man I’ve ever met, who showed me love beyond reason in the few 14 months we had together.

Bokuto Koutarou, who came to me with stars in his eyes and the sun in his soul. Who would touch me so delicately, as if I would break, but also fiercely, and if the strength of all his love could be passed to me through his soft lips.

Bokuto Koutarou, who always, from the first second to the last one, made me feel important and valid. Who gave me more than himself, gave me his friends and family, to call my own.

Bokuto Koutarou, who I loved, who I love, who I will always love, because it is him, and I am me, and how could Kozume Kenma not love Bokuto Koutarou?

It was this love that carried me for the years after you passed away. When I found out I was sick, they already had better treatments, and they worked on me. I’ve gained 35 years more than you now, and I’ll probably have many more from now on.

35 years without you. If I was different, I would had given up a long time ago, just so I could meet you again.

But you changed me, that day, every day we were together. You reminded me of us, and the simple truth that we will always find each other.

Now, I have things to do here, things I can do that will help in the future. That’s why I stay.

That and the assurance that you are at the end of this road I walk along. That you are my destination.

That it is you and me, and us.

**_I won’t cry, I won’t cry_ **

**_No, I won’t shed a tear_ **

**_Just as long as you stand_ **

**_Stand by me_ **

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the little I know about the years during the HIV outbreak, things I saw on documentaries and TV series, or read online. I hope I haven't made any mistakes, and if so, feel free to tell me about it in the comments.   
> As always, kudos and comments are welcomed.   
> English is not my first language, so forgive me for any mistakes.


End file.
